Obama: ‘Don’t Believe Everything You Read On The Internet’

In this image made from pool video, U.S. President Barack Obama listens as Vietnamese rapp
Photo via Pool Video

President Barack Obama joked that people shouldn’t believe everything they read on the internet after student at a town hall meeting asked him about smoking weed.

“I read on internet, I’m not sure if true or not, that you also liked smoking weed,” the student said, referring to Obama’s youth, asking him what inspired him to turn his life around.

“I don’t know if that’s true, but…” Obama grinned, as he took a drink of his tea.

The student questioned Obama during a town hall in Vietnam, with Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative students and told the president that he was a storyteller and a filmmaker.

“Good luck making your movies,” Obama said. “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet though.”

Obama said that he chronicled his story in his book “Dreams of my Father,” a book where he admitted his drug use.

“You never know why something inside you clicks and you decide to take a different path,” Obama said, citing his absentee father and being raised by his grandparents and his mother.

“I think I rebelled in part because I felt something was missing,” he said.

Obama’s marijuana use as a young person was also chronicled by author David Maraniss, including details about his group of friends described as the “Choom Gang.”

Obama himself has discussed his marijuana use, calling it a “bad habit” and a “vice.”

“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life,” he said in an interview with the New Yorker. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”

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